Carb cycling is the foundation of what I do every day and with every client. I know through years of experience with many different clients that carb cycling works, so I’m going to introduce you to the basics and the five different carb cycling plans—Easy, Classic, Turbo, and Fit, and Extreme. I’m stripping it down to the basics to get you started:
What is Carb Cycling + How Does it Work?
Carb cycling is an eating plan with alternating high carb and low carb days. It’s that simple. It also has built-in reward days or reward meals (depending on the plan you’re following), so you can still eat your favorite foods on a regular basis. Sounds pretty much perfect, right? You can eat healthy foods, enjoy foods you love, and still lose weight.
While each plan has a different mix of high carb and low carb days, each day works basically the same:
- Eat five meals—no more, no less.
- Eat breakfast within 60 minutes of waking or whenever your feeding window opens if you’re an intermittent faster.
- For breakfast, you’ll eat a portion of protein, carbs, and fat.
- For your next 3 meals (snack, lunch, snack), you’ll eat either a low or high carb meal depending on which day you’re on. So, if you’re on a low carb day, those three meals will be low carb. If you’re on a high carb day, those three meals will be high carb.
- Your last meal of the day will ALWAYS be a low carb meal. Always.
- Choose approved foods.
- Drink ½ your body weight in ounces of water every day. So, if you weigh 150 lbs, you’ll drink 75 ounces a day.
How Does Carb Cycling Work?
Carb cycling is based on the right combination of proteins, carbs, and healthy fats. In order to lose weight, our bodies need the right combination. Here’s why:
- Protein builds and maintains muscles and these muscles burn calories like an inferno. Protein also breaks down more slowly than carbs and fat, which burns even more calories and helps you feel fuller longer.
- Carbs are the preferred fuel source for your muscles and organs, and they come in healthy versions (vegetables, fruits, grains, and legumes), and not-so-healthy versions (cakes, cookies, soda, doughnuts, candy, and many processed foods). Healthy carbs are also crucial for burning calories, and since they break down more slowly than those not-so-healthy carbs, they keep your blood sugar and energy levels steady, and they also keep your calorie-burning furnace hot so it burns more calories!
- Healthy fats (unsaturated fats) eaten in moderation help the development and function of your eyes and brain and help prevent heart disease, stroke, depression, and arthritis. Healthy fats also help keep your energy levels steady and keep you from feeling hungry.
Why do we alternate high carb + low carb days in carb cycling?
On high carb days you’re stocking your calorie-burning furnace so that on low carb days your furnace burns fat, and lots of it! This pattern tricks your metabolism into burning a lot of calories, even on those low carb days. It’s an amazing and well-proven process.
What are the Benefits of Carb Cycling?
Carb cycling has many benefits:
- It fits any lifestyle.
- You’ll learn how to shed weight and body fat and how to make smart lifestyle choices for the rest of your life. This puts YOU in control.
- You’ll feel better and have more energy.
- You’ll eat the foods you love.
- You’ll build lean, strong muscles.
- You’ll be empowered physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
I’ve only skimmed the surface of carb cycling, so learn more about our five carb cycling plans to find your ideal cycle, and let’s get cycling!
Get even more information on carb cycling in both or our books: Extreme Transformation (the newest edition to our carb cycline lineup featuring the Extreme Cycle) and Choose More, Lose More for Life (which features our other four cycles).
If you’d like some help creating your own meals, there’s a handy “Create Your Own Meals” chart in this post! To get a customized cycle for you and your goals + several workout programs (from gym-based to bodyweight to dance) + the all-important life lessons (the key to long-term transformation), check out The Transform App.
Note: If you’ve been carb cycling using our book, Choose Lose More, Lose More for Life, you’ll notice that we’ve changed a couple of things since that book was published: You now include a fat for breakfast, and every final meal of the day is a low carb meal. Like with a lot of things in life, the more you do them, the more you learn about how to do them even better!
xo,
1,381 Responses
Hi Heidi,
I am just starting out with the turbo carb cycling and I have a question. Sorry if you’ve addressed this previously. I like having yogurt and kashi cereal to start my day. Is it a problem then to have yogurt again later in the day, like adding it to a protein powder? Im thinking since it’s a protein, it would be okay, but then again, technically it’s dairy. Thanks for your advice 🙂
Hi Kellie: Nonfat plain Greek yogurt is considered a protein in carb cycling, so it could potentially be the protein portion of any meal. Regular dairy yogurts don’t have enough protein to be considered a protein, and they do have quite a few carbs. Hope that helps!
Thanks! Very happy about that! So if I wanted to make a smoothy with both a whey powder ( a protein source with less 4 g of carbs) and add nf plain greek yogurt to it, (another protein source) how would I proportion all that protein to equal a fist full? 1 scoop of the whey powder is equal to 36 grams. Thanks again 🙂
Hi Kellie: You can use part of a portion of protein powder and part of a portion of Greek yogurt so that combined they equal a serving of protein (around 20 grams). 🙂
Hi Heidi do you have any recommendations for travelling? I want to follow the plan but don’t have access to normal foods! Are protein bars like mission one or quest good options? Thanks
Hi Rachel: Here are a couple of post that can give you some great tips for traveling: https://heidipowell.net/9358/avoidingroadtripblocks/ and https://heidipowell.net/39/healthy-choices-on-board/. Have an awesome trip!
Hi! I am interested in buying the books on carb cycling and wondered if there are vegan options or if it’s strictly meat based? I only eat whole, plant based foods and no dairy or processed oils or fats. Many thanks!
Hi Julianne: Yes, there are some vegan options in carb cycling. 🙂
Did you find carb cycling options for your plant based diet? If so, where? I’ve been looking & have only had people tell me that the options exist, not actually give me any concrete ideas. If you could point me in the direction of some actual recipes that would be awesome!
Hi Tiffany: You can substitute most any plant-based protein source for any meat-based protein source in most of the recipes. Some options are soy protein sources such as tofu and tempeh and other vegetarian protein options such as hemp, bean, and pea protein. Hope that helps!
Hi, I was wondering if there was a certain amount of carbs I should stay within with the high and low carb days?
Hi Nancy: It depends on which carb cycle you’re following. Here are the recommended macro percentages for all of the carb cycles: Easy, Classic, Turbo, or Fit Cycles: High Carb Meal (including EVERY breakfast): Protein: 40%, Carbs: 40%, Fats: 20%. Low Carb Meal: Protein: 40%, Carbs: 20%, Fats: 40%. The Extreme Cycle: Breakfast (EVERY day): Protein: 30%, Carb: 40%, Fat: 30%. High Carb Meal: Protein: 40%
Carb: 50%, Fat: 10%. Low Carb Meal: Protein: 40%, Carb: 10%, Fat: 50%. Or there are some helpful graphics in both of these posts: https://heidipowell.net/4514 and https://heidipowell.net/10617. Hope this helps!
Hi,
I workout early in the morning and preferably do fasted cardio as I feel that burns more fat but seeing as carb cycling says we should Eat breakfast within 30 minutes of waking what do I do??
You can do whatever works best for you as far as eating and working out go. So if you like to work out before eating, go for it!
Hi there, I’ve decided that I want to give carb cycling a try to see if I can help kick myself off a plateau. I’ve lost 70 pounds over the last 2 years with proper diet and exercise, but I still have about 40 pounds to go. I’ve been completely stalled as far as the scale goes for about 3 months. I have lost a few inches, and I do know the scale actually means very little in the scheme of things, my muscle definition is much better, but I still have fat to lose.
Currently I follow a plan of macro counting and carb bracketing, eating carbs around my morning workouts. My macros have been 40% Protein, 30% Carbs, and 30% fat with a calorie goal of 1400-1600 per day. I weight train 4x per week and spin 1-3 times per week (depending on class schedules), and walk nearly everyday.
I do have a few questions regarding how the carb cycling may help me…
1 – do you think it will help me break the plateau? Instead of eating carbs only in the morning each day, will it help me to do a plan like this where my macros are changing on alternate days? I’m a little afraid of eating more carbs.
2 – on Spin days I have class at 6am. I’m getting up a 5:15 am to get myself ready and drive to class. I do spin classes fasted, (and have zero problem with energy). Will it be ok to eat within 30 minutes of class instead of 30 min of waking since I can’t get myself up early enough to eat and digest before class?
3 – I was going to start on the Classic cycle, but do you think there is a different cycle that would work better for me?
4 – is it important to have the cheat day each week and have more calories on that day or can we just do a regular high carb day? Of course I will have a “Sunday Funday” once in a while, but I find I do better if I don’t let myself indulge too much, even after 2 years of this lifestyle my off switch doesn’t work very well once I start indulging.
Thanks very much, love the books and all that Heidi and Chris do and looking forward to trying this.
Hi Sharlene: Congratulations on losing 70 pounds! That’s awesome! 1. Yes, I do think carb cycling could help you as it’s outlined in Chris and Heidi’s program. 2. Here’s a post that can help you figure out the eating and working out thing: https://heidipowell.net/9194. 3. You can use whichever cycle you think will work best for you, and you can change cycles at any time! 4. Yes, the cheat/reward day is super important for weight loss on these carb cycles. I know, it’s hard to trust in it, but it does work! If you’re afraid you’ll overindulge, you can eat healthy foods all day if you’d like. The main thing is to eat the 1000 extra calories on that day. You can do this!
Hello Heidi,
I am planning to start your carb cycling plan but have a couple of questions. First, I know you (and your books) say that it is important to eat within 30 minutes of waking. My problem is that I wake at 4am to go to work. If I eat at 4:15, that means my next meal would have to be at 7:15, then 10:15, then 1:15, then 4:15. I am just wondering if it would make a big difference if meals were 4 hours apart or if I could snack on veggies or something in between to extend the time – only because I do like to eat with my kids at least in the evening! Also, I see you suggest protein shakes but I have difficulty tolerating protein powders. Any suggestions? Thanks so much,
Hi Wendy: Welcome to carb cycling! Here’s a post that can help you structure your meals on a crazy schedule: https://heidipowell.net/10556. And you don’t have to use protein shakes at all, there are several other protein options you can choose from! You can do this!
I’m just trying to get started on the turbo cycle and I’m confused with the cheese part. I generally make wraps or pita pizzas on whole grain. However, I always added a little shredded cheese on each of these. Grains are high carb days and my cheese looks like it’s under fat on the low carb day. Am I wrong? Also, I’m a huge deli ham fan and bacon bits fan on my wraps…where do these fall?
Hi Kendra: Cheese and bacon are fats so you won’t want to eat them on high carb days. Ham can be eaten as a protein, but look for low-fat, low-sodium versions. Hope that helps – you can do this!
I struggle with protein in my diet, I eat turkey and chicken but not red meat or pork and I don’t like eggs. Any advice?
Hi Brenda: You can also eat seafood, Greek yogurt, protein powders, and cottage cheese as protein sources. Hope that helps!
Hi Heidi
I’m needing some help I recently got your book Extreme Transformation and I’m having trouble figuring out what I can eat because I’m a picky eater so I wanted to use the create your own meals and I know you can use the Appendix D that are in 100 calorie but how do I figure out a low carb meal when it saids <30 I really want to do this the right way. Thanks for any help
Hi Tera: Welcome to carb cycling! Use the foods in Appendix D as a guide to what you should eat on the Extreme Cycle, then portion out your foods to hit those calorie recommendations in the “Create Your Own Meals” chart. And for low carb meals, just make sure your carbs are less than 30 calories for each low carb meal. The “Meal Planning Guide” chart can be helpful when putting your meals together also. You can do this!
I’m a week into the program and feel energized and optimistic. I do have a question, however. I think I understand that I should eliminate fats during the high carb days. If that is the case, does that mean I eliminate fats during the entire sling shot week?
Hi Lin: For the Easy, Classic, Turbo, and Fit Cycles, you will eliminate fats during the Slingshot Week. For the Extreme Cycle, you will still eat your fat for breakfast, just like on any other high carb day. Hope that helps!